Facebook

Today at our F8 conference I'm going to discuss a new privacy control we're building called "Clear History".

In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We're building a version of this for Facebook too. It will be a simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook -- what you've clicked on, websites you've visited, and so on.

We're starting with something a lot of people have asked about recently: the information we see from websites and apps that use Facebook's ads and analytics tools.

Once we roll out this update, you'll be able to see information about the apps and websites you've interacted with, and you'll be able to clear this information from your account. You'll even be able to turn off having this information stored with your account.

To be clear, when you clear your cookies in your browser, it can make parts of your experience worse. You may have to sign back in to every website, and you may have to reconfigure things. The same will be true here. Your Facebook won't be as good while it relearns your preferences.

But after going through our systems, this is an example of the kind of control we think you should have. It's something privacy advocates have been asking for -- and we will work with them to make sure we get it right.

One thing I learned from my experience testifying in Congress is that I didn't have clear enough answers to some of the questions about data. We're working to make sure these controls are clear, and we will have more to come soon.